The 4th 'R': Rumors

A gunman kills 20 children and six adults in a Connecticut school, and a week later and 131 miles away in the Poconos, the rumor mill cranks into high gear.

KAREN M. HARRIS

A gunman kills 20 children and six adults in a Connecticut school, and a week later and 131 miles away in the Poconos, the rumor mill cranks into high gear.

In the last days before school breaks for the winter holiday recess, kids whisper about "hit lists," about a classmate's Facebook posts and about another's violent comments.

Both parents and students transmit the stories at a lightning pace, and school officials are left to investigate them.

But what gets these rumors started in the first place? How do they gain traction? And how do local schools and police handle them?

The reasons for rumors are varied, according to school administrators and police.

"Reasons can range from a child who is extremely anxious about what has happened who then becomes hypervigilant, talking a lot about what could happen," said Anthony Drago, chairman of the psychology department at East Stroudsburg University. "That is one end of the spectrum. The other end is a child or adult who wants to stir up trouble."

Other people may inadvertently start a rumor out of worry to see if others have heard it, he said.

"Other times, it's someone who wants to build themselves up with, 'I know something you don't know.' After all," Drago said, "the definition of the word 'rumor' is 'unverified bits of information that people are trying to substantiate.'"

Rumors are second nature in schools.

"Kids like to talk," said Stroud Area Regional Police Chief William Parrish, adding that there were a lot of rumors swirling after the Newtown tragedy. "Our duty is to backtrack to find the source of these rumors and investigate."

"It's almost like the boy who cried wolf," Parrish said. "You need to check each one out."

His department supplies a full-time school resource officer for Stroudsburg High School.

"Rumors come from so many sources," said Cpl. Jennifer Lyon, the department's SRO program supervisor and the original SRO for the Stroudsburg Area School District. "Kids will repeat the rumor, then say they don't know where they heard it."

Parrish said that the school's SRO, Paul Gasper, spends time tracking down a rumor every couple of weeks.

"We get news instantly and hear of more tragic instances, so it seems that violence happens more often," Drago said. "Rumors often happen after major catastrophes, and then they subside."

Children watch TV as reporters interview neighbors following an incident and begin to wonder about their own "normal" neighbors or their "normal" town and suddenly start voicing their fears. This is the reaction of the hypervigilant child, Drago said.

He said that they are probably the larger percentage of rumor-starters because they are trying to put a tragedy into their immediate context. Suddenly, there is a group of children all talking about and spreading the same story.

Sometimes an older child is the culprit, whether knowingly or not.

A younger child may hear an older sibling talking with friends, misconstrue and then repeat the tale to his friends. Or an older sibling may do what older siblings do: scare the stuffing out of the younger one with wild tales that are then spread throughout the neighborhood or school.

John Toleno, superintendent of the Stroudsburg Area School District, said he tries to get the district back to normal as soon as possible.

"Some individuals will try to feed the fire, and it's easy for rumors to spin out of control," he said. "The only way a district can address it is head on."

After Newtown, Toleno held a town hall meeting to dispel rumors and discuss the district's safety measures, which include security guards in each building and the SRO in the high school.

He said he assesses each incident and will offer extra services based on need. "The closer to home the event is, then the more impact it may have," he said.

He said he prefers not to send notes home or do email blasts because that can introduce the rumor to adults who haven't heard it. He said he has gotten phone calls from upset parents who knew nothing about the rumor until the letter went home. He said alerting all parents can cause the rumor to continue to spread instead of stopping it.

"I think people expect us to send home a letter saying that we've investigated, but we're going to do business as usual so long as I know there isn't a credible threat. I don't want to feed into it by now explaining it to parents who had no idea."

Usually, the district takes internal measures to track down who started it.

"All rumors are investigated," Toleno said. "It could be a 10-minute conversation or it could be a 10-hour conversation. We do our due diligence. Our goal is to ascertain if the threat is credible."

That means checking everything.

"Gone are the days of simply dismissing a comment or rumor as a joke or conjecture," said Richard A. Ruck Jr., a professor of criminal justice at East Stroudsburg University.

After Newtown, Gasper spent about a week just tracking down and dispelling rumors. He also appeared at the town hall.

"We got a lot of phone calls from parents after Connecticut," said Parrish. "We needed to make sure that kids, school administration, teachers and parents all feel safe."

To that end, while the school district has full-time security officers, police patrols and visibility were also stepped up at the schools.

Gasper monitors the school district's Facebook page and the anonymous alert page on the website along with Keith Albert, the school district's captain of security and a former SARP police officer.

Gasper's role is to educate kids prior to events occurring, teaching them how to report a rumor or incident, Lyon said.

"Kids know and trust the SRO," she said. "They learn they can trust him so they're more likely to talk to him. Students see the SRO in a situation where it isn't investigational."

Students are counseled to bring all tidbits to administration or the SRO, she said.

"If they bring us information that turns out to be wrong, they won't get in trouble," she said. "We tell kids that it isn't snitching, we're just trying to get the facts out, not get someone in trouble."

Toleno said he has no problem sending a child for a psychiatric evaluation if he believes the source of the threats is credible. "If a child is going to come to our school and disrupt it, then I am going to nip it in the bud," he said.

Drago said that parents should be there to answer kids' questions — especially from younger kids.

"Continue to reassure them that these are extremely rare circumstances," he said. "Rumors will fly, so if you have that openness with your child, they will come to you first instead of other kids."

Both Drago and Toleno advised parents to be involved in their children's social media activities, but especially after a tragedy occurs. Often, that is when rumors start to swirl online and parents can stop the spread. Parents can also alert school administrators if they see something gaining steam.

"Parents can have an age-appropriate conversation with each child to get fears out in the open and try to squash any potential idle talk before it takes off," Drago said.

Toleno said it is important to keep on top of rumors.

"The less disruptions we have district-wide, the greater ability we have to educate our students. We don't want something small to turn in to something large."